I don't hate the How I Met Your Mother series finale.

That apparently makes me Public Enemy No. 1 – but I don't hate it.

I don't love it, to be sure, but I understand the central message of the show.

I should point out that I stopped watching How I Met Your Mother several years ago – when they decided to pair Barney and Robin (the second time).

Why?

I could never buy the Barney and Robin relationship because it was such a massive betrayal to Ted. And, quite frankly, I could never believe that Barney would purposely do that to his “bro.” It just rang false to me.

Still, I decided to watch the series finale Monday night out of a general sense of nostalgia. While I had quit watching the show, I was aware of the “long wedding weekend” setup for this final season. That gimmick kind of reinforced my decision to quit watching – at least in my mind.

I wasn’t surprised that the show circled back to Ted and Robin. The story was always about Ted and Robin

and how they struggled to “fit” together.

I’ve seen people complaining that Barney and Robin got divorced – but does that really surprise anyone? Both of them were selfish people that never wanted to give up anything to appease anyone else. Of course that was going to come to a head at some point. Plus, Barney is not a one woman man – unless she’s his daughter, apparently.

Do I feel cheated that the mother died and Ted’s story was really a way to ask his children if they would be okay with him dating their Aunt Robin? No, because I always knew that Robin and Ted were the central love story for the entire run of the show. It was obvious from the beginning. Why should that surprise me?

Ted’s love for Robin doesn’t diminish his love for the mother – it was just a different type of love. Ted managed to love them both as best as he could. Did his heart ever truly belong to the mother and only the mother? No. But that's a real life emotion a lot of people face.

The truth is, HIMYM was not a story about Ted finding love. It was a story about a group of friends as they

traverse their twenties and thirties and how people grow and change and move on. The mother was never important to me because it was the group as a whole that was important to me.

Was the HIMYM finale great television?

No. The series finale of Psych last week was much better done and more emotionally fulfilling. I give the writers of HIMYM credit, though. They knew where they were going from the beginning and they stuck to their guns and delivered the love story they wanted to see.

Quite frankly, I’m fine with that.

Okay, let me have it. Tell me why the HIMYM finale was the worst finale in the history of finales.